American director Quentin Tarantino will open the Zabaltegi-Perlas category with his new film, Inglourious Basterds (Malditos bastardos ). This movie, which won the Best Actor Award for Christoph Waltz at Cannes, will be screened on the first day (Friday 18 September) of the 57th festival.

Zabaltegi-Perlas, the section which attracts outstanding films from the big international festivals, which have not yet been released in Spain, will also offer some other movies which won awards at Cannes, for example A Prophet , by Jacques Audiard, which won the Grand Jury Prize; and Kasi az Gorbehaye irani khabar nadareh [No One Knows About Persian Cats ], by the director who has twice won the Golden Shell, Bahman Ghobadi. He received the Special Jury Prize for this film, entered in the Un Certain Regard section.

Apart from Tarantino’s movie, there will be others from the Cannes Official Section, such as Taking Woodstock , by Ang Lee; Vengeance , by Johnnie To, the prolific master of contemporary film noir, and Mother , by Korean director Bong Joon-ho, who has competed at San Sebastian twice before. The film Yuki & Nina by Nobuhiro Suwa and Hippolyte Girardot, highly praised by critics and presented as part of the Directors’ Fortnight, will also be scheduled in this section.

Sundance too will be present with Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire , the film by Lee Daniels which won the Special Jury Prize, the Best Actress award for Mo’Nique and the Audience Award. This director has competed at San Sebastian before, with his first film, Shadowboxer , in the Zabaltegi-New Directors section.

Woody Allen’s work is back at San Sebastian this year: his new comedy Whatever Works , which opened the Tribeca Festival, is the result of his return to New York after making four films in Europe. In contrast, Jim Jarmusch, another great contemporary American director, is to present a movie filmed in Madrid: The Limits of Control.